Polygon’s big bet 💪
Venture deals, more IPOs, and PMO hacked.
👋 Aight folks, Monday again
Almost mid-December, aka times of the holiday parties. Also when the business world starts slowing down a few notches. India still buzzin’ though — IPO markets are red hot, and startup raises are kicking butt. Let’s get into it 🤙
Kicking off the week ☕
1️⃣ Big win for neobanking — the world’s most successful neobank, Brazilian Nubank, started trading on the New York Stock Exchange last week — marking a significant milestone for the challenger banking space. Launched in 2013, the mobile-only banking app scaled to 48 million users across major LatAm countries, reporting $1 billion in revenue, growing at 100%+ rates, and even got Grandpa Buffett onboard as an investor. At ~$42 billion, Nu will now be valued over Robinhood, Chime, and most other global fintech pioneers.
Polygon made a mega bet 💪
What Happened — India’s most successful crypto project, Polygon Network, made a splashy acquisition, buying out Ethereum scaling solution called Mir Protocol — in a deal worth $400 million! 💸
In simple terms, Mir Protocol pioneers something called zero-knowledge rollup — a method of credibly verifying a whole bunch of transactions without “exposing” or sharing any identifiable information with 3rd-party apps, grouping all of them, and then confirming those transactions on the blockchain in 1 go.
Zero Knowledge is believed to be a credible way to reduce gas fees and help make transactions faster on the Ethereum blockchain, which is the gist of Polygon’s promise. Earlier this year, they had acquired another ZK solution provider called Hermez for $250 million.
Anyway, $100 million of the deal will be paid out in $USDC, while the rest will be swapped with $Matic token. Mir will be integrated into Polygon’s own zero-knowledge scaling solution called Polygon Zero.
Bottomline — making Ethereum faster, more efficient, is like the holy grail of the decentralized application world right now. Polygon is at the front. 👑
Quick peek down Venture Avenue 💰
Logistics-as-a-service player Shiprocket closed a $185 million Series E round from Zomato, Temasek, and a few others — at a $900 million valuation.
Shiprocket’s end-to-end shipping solution helps upcoming D2C brands as well as small merchants send their packages out with a host of third-party logistic vendors. The aggregator has expanded to 220 countries, with COVID’s push helping, now topping ~$90 million in annual revenues.
Then, in cloud software we have 👇
MoEngage, a customer engagement SaaS platform that helps brands tune up and customize their marketing campaigns on the go, raised $30 million from Steadview Capital, at a $500 million valuation.
MoEngage lets enterprises blend customer data and then offer tailored offers to users (think $10 if you sign up, $5 credit if you shop with us, that kinda stuff), allowing brands to dynamically acquire, retain, and grow user engagement.
Folks from Future Retail, to Byju’s, to ShareChat and Dominos Pizza use their products, with the business making about $25 million in revenues.
Couple bids popping up on the horizon 📈
Gonna be a busy week for IPOs, again…
⚡ Data Patterns — a classic old-school business, that makes custom electronic systems for defense and aerospace applications, will open its bids on Dec 14.
Imagine processing units, power systems, RF modules, that go into space shuttles and tanks, and then the boring old software to run those things.
Last year, the business made some ₹220 crores in revenues, with profits of about ₹55 crores. DP’s dependence on government and defense spending, plus the lumpiness and seasonality inherent here, slows things a bit, but boring is where the $$ lies sometimes. Quick link to the DRHP.
While we’re here, 👇
MedPlus Health, which runs India’s 2nd largest pharmacy network after Apollo, opens for bidding today. While MapMyIndia will close its subscription. Despite valuation concerns, the bid has been subscribed 6.6x so far!
What else are we Snackin’ 🍿
📉 Shifting winds - India’s forex reserves declined to $1.783 billion, the second successive weekly fall, as foreign investors rapidly exit the markets.
🙄 Hacccc’d - PM Modi’s Twitter account was compromised. Hacker posted a tweet declaring BTC as legal tender and then shared a link to his wallet lol.
🌐 Re-processing - Netflix is launching a new platform called Tudum to showcase interviews, BTS videos, bonus features about its content slate.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
You can forward this email or share FC on social media by clicking the button below. Thanks and Ciao! 😀
India’s forex reserves declined BY not TO $1.783 billion !! Why are you dragging us back to 1990? Lol